


Discovering the True Nature of a Boggart

by jacquelee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boggart typical depictions of fake death, Gen, I just mean a boggart is pretending to be a dead person, That sounds ominous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 04:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13516482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: Luna is curious about a boggart's true nature.





	Discovering the True Nature of a Boggart

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [fic_promptly](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org) for the prompt: Harry Potter, any, getting rid of a boggart

When Professor Moody first announced that they would be studying boggarts soon, Luna did what she always did, she prepared for the subject by finding all the things the books didn't talk about, all the details nobody felt the need to mention. 

In this case, like nearly always, the things people did not write about boggarts were far more numerous than the things they did write. As with most other creatures, the only thing anyone ever seemed to want with a boggart was to get rid of them.

Book after book only talked about the banishing spell, never explaining what a boggart truly was and what it wanted. It seemed everyone was content in saying that all it ever wanted was to frighten people, and that was that. 

Not for Luna. She knew there had to be more here. She knew the boggart, just like so many of the other creatures she studied, was most likely severely misunderstood. Nobody had ever bothered to actually ask it about itself. About why it shape shifted into what people feared the most. About what it itself feared. 

Was it a defensive mechanism as some of the books that tried to be at least a little bit more thorough claimed? Was it a form of attack? Or was it just the boggart's way of trying to make friends, albeit misguided? 

Luna's curiosity was piqued. While everyone around her was only talking about what shape the boggart would take for them, she wondered what shape a boggart would take for a boggart. And what a boggart truly wanted, what its dreams and wishes were. She didn't give the form it would take for her much consideration at all, as it was truly unimportant in the face of the injustice Boggarts faced at the hands of ignorant witches and wizards, as did so many other creatures. 

When the time came and they were in the classroom about to face a Boggart, everyone nervously stepping from one foot to the other, trying to get to the end of the line, Luna was, as always, lost in her own thoughts and didn't much notice that she was shoved and prodded until she was in the front, right behind the first few students who were truly eager to face the boggart. 

Even when Professor Moody said her name and pointed to the giant octopus in socks that was lying on the floor before her, she still didn't much pay attention. Too great were her thoughts about boggarts and the misunderstandings and outright lies that were most likely spread about them. 

When something happened to the creature in front of her, she finally focused on it. This was her chance. Now she would be able to truly study a boggart and what made it itself. Looking at it intensely, she wondered for the first time what form it would take. Would it understand that it didn't have to take the form of something she feared? That it didn't have to frighten her to protect itself? 

It seemed to hesitate and she took that as a good sign, but then it changed, into a human figure, lying on the floor, bloodied. Her father, dead. She nodded solemnly. Yes, this was something she feared indeed. A disappointment that the boggart hadn't sensed that scaring her was not necessary, but after all, this was only the first try. 

She held up her wand, to say the incantation, to make sure that she didn't disrupt Professor Moody's class even though she despised having to get rid of the creature instead of being able to study it, to truly understand it. 

Ah, well, she thought as she changed her dead father into a cloud of a million white blossoms rising up in the air and laughed as they danced and whirled around. 

There was always a next time.


End file.
